Ok can someone give me idea KH levels. I see tanks run 9-12 and stuff looks good. I had some water checked at NSA and they told me a KH or Alk of 9 was too high. I dose with B-Ionic in my 55 tank and usually do it every other day as I forget a lot. Calcium reading tonight was 440 and KH of 8. Are KH and Alk interchangable? Im just trying to figure out where things need to be. If anyone really wants to go in depth im all ears. Thanks
KH is german degrees of carbonate hardness If you divide by 2.8 you will get the mEq/L its just a different way to measure the alk. of the water your reading seem to be fine to me. It all depends on how you want to measure it.
Go to the bookmarked top post on this forum and open it, it well tell you everything you need to know. But short and simple the answer is your right inline. A dkh 7.7 and a cal. of 400 to 420 is considered natural seawater levels. Staying as close to within reason seems to be best but if you do rise above try to do it evenly. A level of 8 dkh and calc of 440 is very nice, both are just a tad on the high side. I keep mine around 440 and 8.6. These well fluctuate a little but keeping them close in balance is the most important part and you have them great, so don't change a thing. You well see people running numbers way higher making all kinds of claims, some are using HGH [human growth hormones, dosing vodka, zeo-vit systems and many other theories. I have found the best is to keep things as close to NSW levels and you don't have all this weird stuff happening that these others do when the system goes amuck. My corals grow plenty fast for me and I have seen most of these other systems and sooner or later they get out of control and corals die or algae blooms happen, and to tell the truth I haven't seen where it is worth the added stress of running them, if there is any added growth speed it wasn't blazingly visable, so keep it simple and at NSW levels, after all that is what mother nature has done fore centuries and it works pretty good. Anyway go to the top bookmark here in chem and read all you want.
I still don't understand those people that add all that crap to there tank. fishermans right keep it simple and you'll have much better success without the weird things that just seem to happen overnight.
Yes im all about simple with good results. I too believe sometimes the less you do the better off you are. Thanks for the replies. It does make me wonder why the wifes tank is runnig 440 calcium and 10 DKH without any suppliments at all. Same salt mix too.
I assume on your wifes tank its due to the little amount of coraline algae and corals using up the calcium.
Ralph's probably right on. Next time you mix some new saltwater up, test it and see what those levels are. It may be around there out of the bucket. I can remember a few years back when Oceanic salt was all the rage until batches started coming out that had 15 dkh and normal levels of calc.. Reefs started STNing and it was due to high alk levels in tanks using this salt. A really good habit is to test each new bucket. I have never used IO salt since the old days when it was about the only choice there was, but I have read several post where there are batches that vary. I never found that an issue with Tropic Marin. Also You may need to buffer it when mixing a new batch to get it in balance. Example is I have switched to this new DOcean salt since it is getting good reviews and found the alk to be just a bit low to the calc. so I buffer the alk just a bit to bring it inline. I could be wrong but in your wifes tank if all you have is softies and fish and inverts it really doesn't matter much. It is important where there are corals that build skeletons to have it within reason for uptake and if you have acros it is really important not to be too high as it may cause RTN or STN. Randy's article well get very detailed.
awesome info guys....thanks. Can you tell me what STN and RTN stand for....im still learning about hard corals...
Slow tissue neurosus, Rapid tissue neurosous [spelling?] The skin on the sps coral well start to die off, usally from the bottom up and in the case of RTN it can happen in a few days.
